


Keep a Hold of Hope

by sequence_fairy



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Angst, F/M, Grief, Hopeful Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-04
Updated: 2017-11-04
Packaged: 2019-01-29 04:10:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12622872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sequence_fairy/pseuds/sequence_fairy
Summary: Looking back, Rose thinks she knew all along something was going to happen.





	Keep a Hold of Hope

**Author's Note:**

> I'm so so so sorry.

“I’ll be back in time for tea,” he’d said, cupping her chin in his hand as he leaned in to kiss her goodbye. Rose had watched him go, his long stride carrying him down the block and out of sight. Torchwood had called, a routine after-hours callout about a strange energy reading, and the Doctor had gathered his things before settling his coat around his shoulders and heading out in the afternoon sunlight.

All that day, she hadn’t been able to shake the quiet sense of foreboding, and when the Doctor’s comm had buzzed, the sick swoop of fear in her stomach had taken her by surprise.

It isn’t until much later, after the tea she’s made has gone ice cold and she’s sitting alone in their dark flat, that the worry starts. There’s been no word, he hasn’t buzzed to tell her he’d be late, which happens when he gets caught up, but there’s been no action on her own comm and the silence is driving her mad.  She’s about to buzz control herself when there’s a knock at the door.

She pads through the flat, picking her taser up off the entry way table and glancing through the peephole. The two agents at the door are young and fresh-faced and Rose’s heart pounds in her ears as she pulls open the door.

“Ms Tyler?” One of the agents asks, and Rose can only nod dumbly.  

“Ma’am,” the dark-haired one,  _Adams_ , Rose’s brain supplies, “ma’am, could we come inside?” He asks gently, and suddenly Rose can’t breathe.

Adams takes Rose’s silence as permission and she follows the pair of them into her living room.  Distantly, she can hear the other agent, his name escaping her, apologizing and something about an accident, an explosion and he pauses and Rose swears later that he had to have heard her heart break, “Ma’am, Agent Tyler, I’m so sorry. The Doctor, he’s gone.”

All of a sudden, sound rushes back in and Rose blinks. The two agents look at her, and Rose blinks again.

“No,” she says, surprised at how steady her voice is, “there must be a mistake.”  

“I’m sorry Agent Tyler,” Adams says, and he fumbles in the pocket of his jacket, holding something out to her. Rose looks down at his palm and he’s handing her the sonic. Rose picks it up, turning it over in her hands, and catches sight of the rusty stain along the handle. Blood, his blood, she notes absently, and then her head swims and she hears the clatter of the screwdriver hitting the floor before she blacks out.

The next two weeks pass in a haze. The wake, the funeral, some kind of memorial at Torchwood. Rose doesn’t remember more than snatches of any of it. She comes back to herself when she closes the door of their flat on Mickey’s nose, admonishing him that she’ll call if she needs him. She makes it as far as the living room that first night, staring sightlessly at the entertainment unit on the wall.

After that, she drifts through the flat, unable to venture into the bedroom for any longer than a few moments at a time. His things are strewn across the dresser and the bed is still rumpled from the last time they woke up together.

———

The grief comes in waves.

It crashes over her in the shower, and she sinks to the floor and hides under the spray until it runs icy cold and then she sits there some more before crawling into the nest of blankets on the couch.

It follows her out of the flat on trips to the grocery store, where it jumps out at her in the produce section or the aisle of tinned things. She leaves more half-empty baskets in grocery stores than the bags of groceries she makes it home with.

It sneaks up on her while she’s doing the dishes, standing at the sink, looking out the window at the twinkling city lights. The plate slips from her numb fingers and shatters at her feet. She breaks every single plate that night, hysteria bubbling up from her gut until it spills out in giggles that won’t stop until she’s hiccuping and wheezing to catch her breath.

It steals into her dreams, leeching them of colour, and making her replay the moment when her heart broke over and over. Sometimes, she can almost save him. Sometimes, the dreams are kind. Those are the worst of them all, and she wakes up in agony with his name on her lips and the taste of him in her mouth.

——-

It’s late, on a Tuesday night when she hears the noise for the first time. It’s a susurration under the normal noises of the flat, and Rose flicks the telly off to listen. It’s been almost six months since… she still doesn’t like to think the words. The noise doesn’t happen again and Rose turns the telly back on to drown out the silence.

She’s been back to work for a few days here and there, but unable to deal with the sympathy and tiptoeing, she’s taken to working odd hours and most of those from the comfort of her home office. She’s not hiding from the world, so much as taking a break from it. She needs this, Rose tells herself, needs the time. She’s not knocked down by the grief any more, and though it still comes up behind her without warning and pulls her under, it does so now without sweeping her off her feet.

Some days, it’s fresh and raw and she feels like it’s an open wound and it makes things like getting out of bed impossible and those are the days she feels like giving up. Other days, she’s almost able to smile at the bank teller, and the lone coffee mug on the drain board doesn’t make her heart clench.

She still hasn’t boxed up his things, or opened the boxes they sent from his lab at Torchwood. They’re stacked in the spare room, the one they’d painted a soft grey, thinking that it was a good colour for a nursery. Rose closed the door after the movers brought them, and hasn’t opened it since.

The susurration happens again on a Saturday afternoon when she’s unloading the wash, and this time there’s a low bonging sound in the basement to go along with it. Rose startles, dropping the laundry basket on her toes. She curses under her breath, and waits for the noise to happen again. It does, and Rose feels the hair on the back of her neck stand up.

She hasn’t been down to the basement since… since he died. It was his space, and she still can’t bear to go down and see all his half-finished projects and the clutter of his experiments. Jake had made sure nothing was going to blow up when he was here after the memorial, but that’s all that’s been done. She steels herself when the noise comes again, louder this time and there’s a general dimming of all the power in the house. Whatever is downstairs is hooked into the panel, so she needs to at least investigate.

Rose gathers her courage and takes the steps down into the basement cautiously, flicking the light on as she goes by the switch on the wall. The basement room illuminates quickly, the fluorescent bulbs humming as they warm up. The lab bench is cluttered and dusty, bits and bobs of various small appliances and what looks like some tech nicked from Torchwood litter the work surface. The noise comes again as she steps onto the cement floor and Rose feels a warmth buzzing in the back of her mind along with it.

She looks around for the source of the noise, and notices a sort of rectangular shape covered by a drop cloth in the back corner of the room. Her feet carry her across the room, and she tugs off the covering before she can think of not doing it. She gasps, and her heart swells with an emotion she’d forgotten the feel of.

It’s their TARDIS. Still not quite as tall as she is, but almost as wide as the original, and settled into a more squat police box shape, but coloured green. Rose rests a hand against the wood, and hears a chiming hum in response. She tries the door, and it swings open soundlessly. Inside, the baby TARDIS is dim, only a few lights on, and the bare minimum of console growing out of the centre of the room. There are no corridors yet, but Rose can feel her. She’s alive, and for the first time in months, Rose feels like she might be too. 


End file.
